Within the water industry, there is an increasing demand for routine repair works and maintenance/inspection works to be carried out without disruption of the water network services. Thus, there is a desire to maintain operational pressures and flows. In addition, it is desirable to minimise the amount of excavation required to find the location of leaks in underground pipes.
It is known therefore to introduce a camera into a pipe for detecting leaks by means of visual internal inspection. However, many difficulties arise in the feeding of a camera over a long distance. Furthermore, visual inspection is not fully reliable in detecting leaks.